FLEXIcontent 5.1: safer, smarter search, modern filters

Update available for Joomla 4 - 5 and 6 — the largest security hardening FLEXIcontent has ever shipped, together with long-awaited improvements to search, filters and content import.

Version 5.1 is out. It focuses on three priorities: protecting your site with defense-in-depth hardening, making search genuinely useful through smart autocomplete, and modernizing day-to-day work in both the administration and the public site. As always, the update leaves your existing content untouched: it consolidates and improves.

1. Security: the heart of this release Top priority

5.1 includes a comprehensive hardening pass over files, downloads, forms and data output. If you run a FLEXIcontent site, this is the number one reason to update promptly.

Bundled third-party libraries were also updated for security and compatibility: phpThumb (fixes a known vulnerability) and php-css-parser.

2. Search and autocomplete

Search becomes far more relevant and pleasant to use:

• Richer suggestions. Autocomplete returns more results by drawing on titles, tags and now also on your site's fields and meta-keys.
• Next-word completion. When you type a phrase, the suggestion targets the word that actually follows it in the index — no more unrelated frequent-word lists.
• Configurable result priority. You can define a priority order by content type and by field, applied before any other sorting.
• Categories in autocomplete. Categories can now appear directly in the suggestions, and keyword suggestions for categories were fixed.
• Visible active filters. The results page now shows a badge recap of the selected filters (configurable option), so you can see at a glance what is narrowing the list.

3. Modernized admin filters

Administration lists (items, tags, files, types…) adopt cleaner, more modern filters:

• Reconsidered list filters, including a dedicated file search filter.
• Multi-select dropdowns now open properly, no longer get squeezed in the filter bar, and keep a consistent width.
• Action buttons and toolbar are better arranged, including on smaller screens.

4. AJAX filtering on the public site

Dynamic filtering of lists (without a page reload) was rewritten to be more robust:

• Rewritten in modern JavaScript, with clean cancellation of in-flight requests (AbortController): no more stale results on rapid clicks.
• Page modules are correctly re-initialized after each filtering.
• The map module now follows AJAX filters and displays at the right width.
• jQuery is now loaded conditionally — only when needed.

5. Remove jquery Dependency

• Adding choicejs for all filter
• Adding swiper library for slideshow in galery field and universal module
• Adding glightbox library for lightbox image

You need to set and use this new librarys its not automatic for old projects.

Flexicontent is now lighter and less jquery dependency 

6. CSV export / import and tags

• Re-importable exports. Exported CSV files can now be re-imported on another FLEXIcontent site — field formats were harmonized and the description is exported too.
• Export selected items. You can export just the selection, not only the whole list.
• Import with a tag selector. The import tool lets you pick tags and fixes various file-check issues.
• Cascading removal of Joomla tags. Cascading removal of tags is supported, with clearer interface messages.

7. Modules and layouts

• New “Offset items” parameter for the FLEXIcontent module: skip the first N items to, for example, show “the rest” after the featured ones.
• Item top-block in flexbox, with column width configurable from the type parameters.
• Layout parameter descriptions shown in the administration, so you understand each setting without guessing.
• Fixed the carousel (swiper) display width and various minor adjustments.

8. Compatibility and fixes

• Updated php-css-parser for PHP 8.4 compatibility.
• Updated phpThumb (security + PHP 8.5 compatibility).
• Fixed PHP 8.x warnings in the related-items list and in the “grid” template.
• Fixed the vote AJAX URL being resolved at the right time (voting and review form loading work again regardless of the URL context).